Wil,
Did you hear that Lamar Smith was caught illegally using a photographer's picture on his website? That's right...the primary author of SOPA was found to be infringing on someone's copyright.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120112/11042717390/lamar-smith-caught-infringing-photographers-copyright.shtml

“Why is it that when Republicans and Democrats need to solve the budget and the deficit, there’s deadlock, but when Hollywood lobbyists pay them $94 million dollars to write legislation, people from both sides of the aisle line up to co-sponsor it?” --Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian on CN...

My good buddy Stefan Alexander recently released a free three track Acoustic Single pack as a promotion for his upcoming album. You should check him out, Wil...he's a fantastic songwriter, and an amazing guitarist.
His site can be found here: http://www.stefanalexandermusic.com
You can also find the EP he released a few years ago on iTunes. I can't recommend him highly enough!

My brother has been making these cool time lapse videos of life on his ranch in Montana. In a recent video, he used music that I instantly loved ... but he didn't say who it was. Luckily for me, I live in the future, so I fired up Shazam on my Android, let it do its thing, and in less than a min...

I came across this post at No High Scores yesterday. It's about how mega publishers are starting to limit access to the media in terms of review copies, overall access, as well as in potential ad money. There are a lot of great things about working in the games industry. You know what the bes...

"I love making something where something wasn't before..."
That's EXACTLY why I love to write and make music.
Whenever I read something or listen to a track, I suddenly forget what it was like before I read/heard it. I can try to picture a time not five minutes ago when this piece of media was completely unknown to me, but now it's a part of my knowledge base. It's something that I have stored in me, and every time I read or hear it from now until the day I die, it will never be new again.
Knowing that even just a few people experience that feeling of something being NEW because I made it is amazingly rewarding.

Letters of Note is one of my favorite websites. Yesterday, LoN shared this note from James Dean, which he wrote shortly after moving to New York to pursue an acting career, and before he became James Dean™: Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. The stage is like a religion you ded...

This is Safe for Work. As Chris Hardwick says, I think I'm going to buy this, and skip the naughty bits so I can see the story. (There are a bunch of NSFW behind the scenes pictures from actress April O'Neil -- who is a gigantic geek, apparently -- right here.)

I love reading stuff like this. Even though I'm not an actor (and never could be), I absolutely love being given an inside look at the process, ESPECIALLY while it's actually going on! Every time you talk about acting in some way, it makes me pine for more.
Hey...have you thought about writing a book on acting? I don't mean how to be an actor, or how to get into the industry. I'm talking about what it's like living the life and what it means to you creatiely. Or would that be approaching the "Whoa there, that's for my brain and my brain only" territory?

When we're on location for Eureka, Felicia Day is like my best friend and my younger sister, all at once. We give each other shit all day long, we hang out when we're not working, and we lean on each other when we have those days all artists have that make us question why we thought we could do ...

Dude! If they don't completely wear you out, you should totally record a Radio Free Burrito episode like you did last time you were working on Eureka. It was awesome hearing your thoughts while you were in the middle of working. You always sound genuine, but somehow it felt even more genuine than in normally would.

When the alarm went off at 5am, I wasn't sure where I was. I mean, I knew I was in bed, but I was on the wrong side of the bed, and why was I awake when it's still dark outside? After a few seconds, my brain finished booting up and I remembered that I am in Vancouver, I sleep on the wrong side o...

"If you're hardcore, just juice that little green bastard right over the simmering pot, and say some Bond Villain stuff about how you expect it to die."
This is possibly the greatest sentence you have ever written.

"What are you making?" Anne asked. I looked up from the cutting board, and put the knife down so I wouldn't somehow cut my hand off when I wasn't looking (yes, I am that clumsy). "Black bean soup," I said. "Is it from a recipe, or are you winging it?" "I've made so many different recipes from so...

Oh man...I remember when you first posted that story on your blog! I love reading about the nostalgia in your life, since it gets me all weepy-eyed and nostalgic about my own life :)
Question for you: does it ever weird you out that you know hardly anything about your readers/fans, yet they know a whole heap of stuff about you? I realize that's just a natural part of being a successful actor/blogger, but still...doesn't it weird you out? Just a little?
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

This morning, while driving around town, Anne and I heard Green Grass and High Tides on the radio. It was part of a set of songs with "green" in the title, on account of it being St. Patrick's Day. It's a stretch, but any excuse to play a great song on the radio -- especially a song that's nearl...

Count me in as a buyer, were you to make something like this more widely available. If you were to put together some massive ZIP file on Lulu and peg the price at $80 (slight discount for the bulk purchase, not to mention no need to invest in USB drives), you would likely sell a fair number of them. ESPECIALLY if you've already done the work of creating the archive...think about it, we would pay a measly $80 (or whatever you decide to charge) for this amazing collection, you would get cash money (well..."digital" cash money), AND the actual cost to you would be minimal.
I really hope you generate enough interest to do this; I, for one, would buy it on the first day. TAKE MY MONEY, WIL!
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

Tomorrow, I head up to glorious Seattle for the Emerald City ComiCon. I'm doing the usual storytellings and autograph signings, though I have to leave on Saturday due to an unfortunately-timed family commitment. I'm hosting an Awesome Hour on Friday at 4pm, and I'll be on The Guild panel with Am...

When I was a kid, we got a subscription to Highlights sent to our house. I would go through each copy meticulously for about a week, then put it in the stack of other "forgotten" issues. It wasn't until I was about 20 or so, and I brought it up to my Mom, that I found out why we actually had the subscription:
My step-dad loved reading it. ::head shake:: I swear, the things you learn about your parents when you come of age...
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

Last night, on the way home from dinner, I asked Anne, "Do you remember Highlights for Children?" "Of course I do," she said, "I remember how I hated going to the doctor when I was a kid, until I started reading Highlights in the waiting room." "Turn right at this intersection," I said, "and Tra...

The gaming bug bit my wife and I seemingly out of nowhere a couple of months ago. I went from not having played a pen-and-paper in close to a decade, to being involved in no less than FOUR different campaigns taking place in THREE different gaming systems (two DnD games, one Star Wars game, one Red Dwarf game.)
Question for you: how does one go about translating session notes into an actual storyline? The reason I ask is I've been tasked with keeping session notes for the home-made 3e campaign a buddy of mine is running (I play a dwarf named Belthor, commonly known as Belt.) Once the campaign is over, I plan on condensing all the notes down into a single document (with comments from the players at the end of each session)...but it's going to be nothing more than literally taking the session notes and smooshing them together. I would MUCH rather translate them into a full-blown flowing story, but have absolutely no idea where to start. Any suggestions?
The relevant session notes (night four was last night...there will likely be a total of 16-20 nights):
http://livingwithanerd.com/tag/personal-campaign/

I cleared two pretty big deadlines yesterday, both for RPG-related projects. One of them I don't think I can talk about, but involved a fair amount of writing. It was one of the most enjoyable creative experiences of my life, and it excited and inspired me to pick one of the ideas in my notebook...

Excellent stuff! I would gladly pay for it! I myself have been recently getting into the whole fiction thing...I've only released one story so far, but check it out...it's free to read and free to download on Scribd.
It's a short story called "Reversion", in which a zombie finds himself slowly coming back to life. Enjoy!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45870839/Reversion
Tagline: A zombie awakens to find himself slowly turning human. What becomes of the grey when they return?

Earlier this week, I was talking with my friend Amy Berg, who is one hell of a writer (she's an Executive Producer on Eureka, and created Cha0s when she wrote for Leverage). Amy's been encouraging me to write fiction for years, even when I regularly responded with statements like "I can't" or "I...

Some friends and I are currently going through a 3e campaign that's really laid back (we have character sheets, but we were given an automatic 18 for one of our attributes, were given max starting gold, max hp per level until we hit level 5, etc. No map or minis, either.) I've been tasked with writing up the session notes, which I've been posting for all to read. So far, we've only had three sessions (last night was our third night), but once the campaign is over I'm going to put everything together in a single document and post it on scribd. The first three nights session notes weigh in at around 5,000 words. Here's a link to the tag on my site, if anyone is interested:
http://livingwithanerd.com/tag/personal-campaign/
Note: I had only met the DM prior to this game starting...the other two players knew each other, but I had never met them prior.

Saturday morning, I drove over to my friend Cal's house for D&D. Our friend Steve was already there, and our friend Martin was on his way to meet us. While we waited for Martin to show up, we caught up on our lives, told stupid (and not-so-stupid) jokes, and got ready for the game. "Hey, I broug...

"Not too shabby, since this initially started out as the dreaded blog about not blogging"
Man, I HATE when that happens...whether it's writer's stupidity, can't think of a topic, or whatever causes it, those are the kind of posts that make me feel like an ass the whole time I write one.
That being said, it does kind of suck that you don't have the creative juices needed to act full time for Eureka AND write up a blog post every day...but come on! You get to act full time! FOR EUREKA! Can't wait to see it :)
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

I'm sitting in my apartment in Vancouver, finishing my coffee and oatmeal. My iPod is shuffling through a massive 80s alternative playlist I made before I came up here, so I've been accompanied by Elvis Costello, The Smiths, Souxie, Depeche Mode, The Jam, and Bauhaus while I start my day. I'm no...

GAH! This sort of thing always seems to happen...a friend will email me about a kick-ass shirt, I'll check it out the next day or day after, and then find out it was a super-limited-time kind of thing. I know this is done to keep the shirts unique, but still...GAH!
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

I love this shirt so much, I am in for three, and then in for three again: It's currently in the derby at shirt.woot, and it really needs to make it across the finish line. If you agree with me, please give it an upboat. Godsdammit, the derby is closed. Well, enjoy what could have been, anyway.

That's a shame...my then-fiance now-wife found it while browsing Netflix, and we both really enjoyed it. Sure, it was campy, but it was still a lot of fun. What about it made it such a pain in the ass to film?
Jane White is Sick and Twisted is still, by far, the greatest piece of media you have ever been a part of. Seriously. That movie holds "legendary" status in our house, and is even used as a "test" for new friends.

I wonder if the current generation of about-to-be-born geeklings will appreciate how awesome it is to have geekmoms and geekdads? Zero Lives says: My son Dean is going to be out of beta in just over 3 months and I've got some preparing to do. I've never understood why parent stick the crap bumpe...

So awesome! One of these days, we'll make it out to PAX Prime. I've never been to Washington State, and going to PAX Prime seems like the perfect introduction to the state. My wife and I recently got into Zombie Dice (thanks to a post you made on twitter a few months ago.) It really is the perfect way to kill 10-15 minutes...super fun, and easily adaptable as a drinking game ;-)
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

PAX started for me, like it does for a lot of people, a few days early, when I was traveling to Seattle. I took the train from Vancouver (for $38, you really can't beat it) and met a couple of other guys who were on their way to PAX. I introduced them to Zombie Dice, and we played several games,...

Dude, grats! I've often thought about things like this...all the crazy cool things and people you have gotten to meet because of your profession(s). I'm glad you finally get to complete a childhood dream...that's always an awesome feeling:-)
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

I'm coming to Gen Con! If you like playing nerdy games, even a little bit, you owe it to yourself to go to a game con. There are awesome regional cons happening all the time, like the Strategicons we have here near LAX, and RinCon in Tucson, but the biggest one of all is Gen Con. I've wanted to ...

(Photo by me. Click to embiggen and get more info at Flickr.) Last night, Anne and I went to watch Roller Derby (which doesn't, by the rules of English grammar, need to be capitalized, but by the rules of capitalizing Things What Are Awesome does) live for the very first time. I used to watc...

OMFG SEASON FOUR!!!! The Guild is very loved in my household, and Season Three was the best one yet. I cannot freakin' WAIT for this, I'm quite happy you are coming back:-)
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

I'm organizing my thoughts for the obligatory w00tstock post, writing columns for Techland, trying to catch up on e-mail, and generally settling back into the usual work routine after an intense and crazy few days of travel and performance. Until I can put together all the w00tstock thoughts, th...

I still hate the fact that these things are happening way too far from me to make a trip possible, but I'm glad they have been so successful for you:-) It's important to have an anchoring thing like this in everyone's life, and the fact that yours just happens to be so awesome for everyone is a great bonus!
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

When Paul and Storm and Adam Savage and I had our first conversations about what would become w00tstock, we knew that we wanted to put on an entertaining show for our fellow nerds that would be successful enough to warrant more than the three shows we originally planned. Sunday and Monday, we're...

You know...you've written about more interesting topics before. You've written better blog posts before. Hell, you've written funnier stuff before. But for some, inexplicable reason, this is quite possibly my favorite post from you of all time :-) Your excitement seemed to permeate through what you wrote....I love it :-)
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

Belle and Sebastian played in my office, while I got ready for this weekend's convention. I zipped up my backpack, stood up, and stretched. I made that ughh noise that, as a child, I always associated with old people. I walked a couple steps across the room and sat down at my desk to look at the...

Yeah...you wouldn't want to create a real-life Moonpie :p
All joking aside though, I look forward to reading your opinion on the law. I'm also happy to hear that regardless of your (obviously) negative view of it, you aren't going to hold that against your fans. I swear dude, if you earn any more props, you'd have...um...uh...well, I don't know what it would be, but it would be something that was fucking proper, that's for sure.
http://www.livingwithanerd.com

Friday afternoon, Anne, Storm, and I walked up the street in Seattle toward a towering red brick building. Next to the kind of ancient metal fire escape that inspires poets to write about life in the city, a sign was painted on the side of the building. It identified the building as a theater, th...